Chapter 2 Sometimes you have to hug the people you don't like so you know how big of a hole you need to dig in the backyard. -Audric's secret thoughts AUDRIC Six Years Later "What do you mean?" I was well and truly shocked at the words that had just slipped from her lips. "I just need to marry for convenience," Laney said. "And you're the perfect person to piss my dad off, that I know won't fall in love with me while we're married for a year." She wasn't lying. When my mom decided to kill herself and fucked it up, I'd turned into a completely different person. That full ride for football that I'd been aiming toward was gone, mostly because I'd realized that life was bigger than football. I needed to be home. I couldn't leave and make a name for myself because my dad needed me here. Hell, the four years I'd spent in the Army had felt like torture. I'd watched as the life had slowly slipped out of my dad's eyes in those four years. No more. The moment that my dad had come into the house that day, all divorce proceedings had been halted. Dad was still married to Mom. Mom was in an assisted living facility with half of her face, and a quarter of her brain gone, living life with the knowledge that she'd fucked her life up forever. She was forced to go to therapy-because she was very much aware of everything that she had done. And still had to do. She was forced to face her fears. Dad was miserable. I was miserable. Mom was certainly miserable. Everyone was miserable. "Laney, honey..." I said to my good friend. "This is a terrible idea." "But we have to sell it," she continued, acting like I hadn't said a thing. "We can't do this half-ass. We have to make it look real when we're in public." I stared at her, still not biting. "And the money that I get out of this...I can pay off your mom's medical bills." That had my stomach somersaulting in my belly. My mother. My goddamn mother. Fuck her. Fuck everything about her. I looked away. "Audric," she whispered. "This is going to work great." "I don't think..." "Just fucking do it," Creole interjected as she came out of the bedroom looking as beautiful as ever. "We both know that you're going to. Laney needs a husband to gain her half a billion-dollar inheritance. You need money to pay off your mother's medical bills. And let's not forget your family home in Hawaii that you were just about to list for sale." I gritted my teeth. My great-grandmother and great-grandfather had died in a small plane crash when they'd been island hopping years ago. They'd left my grandmother the house in Oahu. My grandmother had then passed it on to me when she'd decided to move closer to her family. She'd left our other cousins the money. Both had equaled out the same, but the bad thing about my part of the inheritance was that I couldn't afford the taxes it was going to cost to keep the damn place. At least if my cousin had gotten it, he would've had a way to keep the place. Me, on the other hand? I barely had enough money to rub two pennies together. I was Broke, with a capital B. My mom's medical bills were outrageous, and they were drowning us. To keep her in assisted living each month was five thousand dollars. Dad and I combined didn't make that. As a journeyman plumber, I made good money. But good money didn't matter when you had millions of dollars in medical bills to pay and a five-thousand-dollar rent check to caregivers for your asshole of a mother. "I..." "Plus," Creole continued as if I hadn't been digesting her previous words still. "Laney will never find someone that she loves like she loves you. Unless you count me, and I can't give her the family that she wants." I couldn't either. "I can't either," I echoed my own thoughts. "You may not, no," she agreed. "But if she winds up pregnant, they'll automatically assume it was you. She winds up pregnant when she's with me, they'll be wondering what kind of filth infected their bloodline and go digging." I rolled my eyes. Laney's parents were the problem here. They were controlling, rich, and entitled. They couldn't stand anyone that they deemed "beneath" them. They hated me with a passion and hated Creole even more. Creole didn't beat around the bush anymore. She hadn't in seven years when she'd started acting like a completely different person. She didn't act like she was who she wasn't, and I kind of liked that about her. Other than her hotness, that might be the only thing that I liked about her. Her ability to stand up for herself and others was everything, especially when it came to Laney's parents, Luciano and Paula Combs, it was legendary. Not even Laney and I could do it. Not that I was a pushover or anything. To be truthful, if I knew that it wouldn't hurt Laney, I'd fuck the motherfuckers up. However, I couldn't stand to watch Laney get hurt, so I let her handle her parents how she saw fit. "Mama," a little boy came barreling out of the bedroom where Creole had previously been waiting. "Can you tie this?" My heart panged at the little boy's bald head. Leukemia. He'd been suffering from it for a little over six months. The prognosis was good, but he was still being tortured with chemo and radiation. Poor guy. "Yeah, baby." Creole bent down, and Damon, her son, pressed his tiny little hand against her shoulder. Creole didn't flinch like she did with everyone else. Then again, when you had a kid at seventeen like Creole did, it was doubtful that you would be able to get away with not touching your own kid. I watched the entire interaction and grinned when Damon wobbled on his one foot. I reached out to offer my hand, and Damon's small hand closed over my fist. "Thanks." He smiled. "That would've hurt." Damon bruised easily with the chemo, according to Creole. I'd bet he would hurt if he fell. The kid had no meat on his bones. Damon let go of my hand and ran off, knocking his mother to her ass in the process. I stayed where I was, opening my palm to offer help to get Creole to her feet. Creole looked at my hand that I was still holding out for her for a long second before offering me a tight smile and taking my hand. I inwardly watched her flinch before she let me go with a muttered thanks. "I have to go," she said to Laney. "My mom and dad should be here really soon." "Safe travels, friend." She smiled. "Love you." "Love you, too." Creole took off without saying another word, the door closing behind her. "What's going on?" I asked as I watched Creole disappear through the living room window of Laney's apartment. "Creole got a new job with the airlines," she explained. "She started it last week. It makes pretty good money, but also, it offers great benefits and healthcare to boot. Which will retroactively go into effect." She jerked her head in Damon's direction. Ahh, made sense. "Why doesn't her mom have him if she's busy?" I asked. I watched Laney's face fall. "Joy has colon cancer." I closed my eyes. Fuck. Creole couldn't catch a break, could she? "Fuck," I said again. "That's another reason I want to get married." Laney looked into her bedroom where we could see Damon playing on the floor. "She has medical bills, too. I'll pay them both off." And that was the final nail in the coffin. "Are you sure about this, Laney?" I asked. She smiled. "More than." "Then we'll go to the courthouse Monday." "Anything for you, Detroit," she teased. My brows rose. "Detroit?" "Yeah." She grinned. "Your shirt. It has Detroit on it. I figured I'd coin you with your new motorcycle club name." I shook my head. "No." And it would continue to be a no. The only reason I had the Detroit Lions shirt on was because I knew that seeing it on my body physically made my mother angry. It was petty, but anything I could do to piss her off was my intention. I hated going to see her. The only reason I did was to give my dad a break. If it was up to me, I'd leave and never come back. But my dad had a stupid moral compass and felt like it was his duty as a husband to take care of his wife. "I don't want to be called Detroit," I repeated. The name Detroit reminded me of my mother, and I couldn't stand her. Being called that would fucking suck. Except the name didn't get lost like I hoped it would. It stuck, and for the next six years, I would be reminded of my mother every single time the name was spoken. But it made Laney giggle, and how the hell was I supposed to get rid of a name that made her happy?